038: Take What You Can – Seven
Fully dressed in their outfits, specialized gear tucked into their suits where it could fit, slung over shoulders in bags and cases where it couldn't, cameras hovering nearby and ready to start filming at a moment's notice, the crew of the Pelekys was ready to begin their first mission as a Kith of the Void crew.
"I'm coming up on the transport now," Viatrix announced, "Do we want to get footage of the transfer?"
"I believe that would be wise," Pryseia said, turning to Elytra, "I assume such a thrilling escapade will do numbers?"
"High risk stunts always do." Elytra replied behind her Augury mask.
Pryseia grinned at that. "Then let's make it showy. Begin recording. Vi, we await your leisure."
Viatrix let out a delighted laugh, which quickly morphed into something glitching and sinister as the lighting in the ship faded to an obscene red, the symbol of an axe manifesting across every screen within the hallway they were stood in.
"I am nearing the vessel, my Queen," the Program's garbled voice called out a moment later, all trace of humour gone, "Looping security footage to mask your presence."
"Good," Queen Kaizoku said, turning to regard those accompanying her coolly, "The rest of you know the plan, and the time constraints we work under. I expect you all to live up to your reputations."
Chancellor Bathory let out a silent snort of laugher. "Don't worry, Kaizoku, we will."
The Queen's Red Left Hand surged towards Bathory, claws extended, but she'd barely had a chance to move before Kaizoku clapped a hand on her shoulder. The Chancellor stared at the Hand, a slow sneer crawling across her face.
"Augury, have you any insight to provide?" Bathory asked rather than addressing the tension in the hall, though her eyes never left those of the Hand.
The strange alien flinched, eyes flaring brightly from the confines of her hood. "I see… our target. It calls out to… to one of us."
General Grim turned to glare at her, repeating, "One of us? Whom?"
Augury was silent for a moment, twitching under the weight of whatever it was she was seeing. After a moment, she lifted her arm, pointing a finger at the Hand.
"Oh ho." Bathory murmured, "How interesting."
"My Queen, the feed is looped. Bringing the ship into position." The Program interrupted any further conversation.
Kaizoku passed a glare across Bathory and her forces before her face was obscured by the helmet that seemed to fold itself out of her crown like a thousand little panes of glass. It only took a moment for it to solidify into place, an opaque helm more befitting a medieval suit of armour hiding her features, her crown still prominent despite this transformation.
Like a rush of blood, the Hand's own suit ran down her arms and up her face, her glare never once letting off Bathory.
Likewise, the Chancellor's suit materialized up her form, her smirk the last thing to vanish as a smooth, featureless helmet covered her head.
Beside her, the General pulled on her own helmet, a hiss sounding as the airtight seal was secured.
Perpetually helmeted as she was, Augury simply joined in the others when they activated devices attached to the chest plates of their spacesuits. Their forms were briefly distorted by a surge of some type of energy, before fading back to nothing.
"We're set," the Queen announced, "Open the doors."
Before them, the wall opened up, a ramp descending down towards the ship they were keeping pace with, its own hatch swinging wide as the Program bent it to its will. Beyond the ship, stars could be seen, the darting lines of them making it clear that both vessels were travelling at speed.
Without another word, Queen Kaizoku turned and leaped the gap between the two ships, thrusters on her suit sending her hurtling into the waiting hold before them. One after another, the others followed suit.
As the ramp on the Pelekys swung shut, Viatrix made sure that one of the cameras left in her control got footage of her sinister Program laugh ringing out through the now empty halls. Something to add a little spice to the editing later.
Over the crew's Longan Units, which were not rigged up to be recorded by the cameras, Viatrix told them, "Departing for the rendezvous point. Break a leg out there!"
Rhea didn't need psychic powers to feel the confusion from the rest of them, so she forwarded a message via text to them all.
RHEA: It's a human saying that's normally given to actors. It basically means "good luck".
Pryseia turned in order to disguise the slight shudder to her form as she suppressed a laugh at that. Smoothly, as Kaizoku, she said, "We have precious little time. See to your tasks."
Everyone split up then, spreading out to the walls of the ship, where they made short work in opening up panels and tucking small items they pulled from their bags inside before sealing everything back up again. The Hand went to the front of the vessel, to where a pilot would sit were this not an automated craft, rolling onto her back in order to access an awkwardly out of place panel near the ground. She had it open with no effort, and quickly had some kind of device wired into the main console. Clearly this was not her first time modifying a ship in such a manner.
Without a need for an organic pilot, the minimal cockpit of this craft had no windows, so there was no grand sight of a world rising up to meet them as the saboteurs neared their destination. It was only the sudden turbulence of their descent through the atmosphere that alerted them to where they were exactly en this route.
The General tapped out something on the small keypad on her vambrace before waving her hand towards the front of the ship. An instant later, a simple outline projection appeared, showing the curve of the planet they were bound for rapidly flattening as they flew closer to its surface, the irregular shapes of islands rendering as quickly as they vanished as they made their approach.
"Is everything in place?" Queen Kaizoku demanded. She was met with terse words of confirmation not long after, to which she nodded in satisfaction. "Excellent, we near our destination. Their sensors will not be able to detect us, but any with eyes shall have no such issue. We must be surreptitious in our incursion. I will not have failure, close as we are to our prize."
"Have no fear, Your Majesty," Bathory told her, somehow sounding disrespectful despite the respectful form of address, "We know the parts we have to play."
Queen Kaizoku's form rocked slightly from her derisive laugh, but no sound came forth.
Across the display the General had brought up, a building was rapidly coming into view, clearly the destination of the ship they'd stowed away on. As it slowed enough to make a safe landing, the interlopers tucked themselves among the stacks of containers that filled the majority of the space.
It wasn't long before the ship gently jolted as it touched down, and another wave of Grim's arm banished the display to nothingness.
Elytra breathed out a sigh, quietly saying, "Luck has been with us so far."
Next to her, Rhea patted her gently on the back, saying, "Here's hoping it holds. Things are about to get a lot more complicated from here on out."
"Be that as it may, we will see ourselves crowned in victory yet," Pryseia said, "One way or another."
Over their Longan Units, Viatrix announced, "I'm pulling into position now. That ship's about to move into the museum's loading bay, so I won't be able to stay in touch once you're under the museum's security measures."
"If all goes according to plan, you'll be seeing us on the roof within the hour." Nevara told her.
"I'd better!" Was all Viatrix was able to get in before the line was cut off.
Slipping back into her Augury voice, Elytra let loose with another full body twitch, saying, "The drones approach."
"Prepare yourselves." Grim threatened, and the lot of them tenses as they awaited what was to come.
The didn't have long to wait before the hatch at the rear of the transport vessel opened wide, simple drones meant for moving goods hovering over to start removing the containers from the ship. Quickly, carefully, using the drones and their cargo as moving cover, the invading crew made their way into the receiving room, skirting stacks and slinking from shadow to shadow. It was clear that they acquired substantial intelligence on the layout of the place, as they moved with all the confidence of people who knew exactly where they were going.
It wasn't long before the five of them reached a door that led deeper into the building they were there to steal from, the Hand taking all of five seconds to have it sliding open to allow them entry.
They stealthily made their way through a few more corridors before they emerged out into a larger room. High windows along the walls let in pale pink light from the moons outside, sharp shadows cast by the security bars in place over them at this time of night. In the gloom, the objet d'art in this wing of the museum were about as impressive as bargain bin tchotchkes.
"We have precious little time to retrieve all that we have come here to seek," Queen Kaizoku said quietly to her gathered court, "Dividing the task will speed it's completion."
"I'll accompany your Hand in the acquisition of that machine." Bathory told her, the Hand turning to face her, glare apparent even with her helmet in place.
"See to it then," Kaizoku said, nodding her head to the others, "The rest of you, attend to me."
Grim and Augury cast a look back at Bathory as they fell into step behind Kaizoku, but they said nothing.
Turning to the Hand, who only came up to about her nose, the Chancellor looked down on her to say, "Shall we?"
The Queen's Red Left Hand only scoffed, turning to strike off in the opposite direction her Queen had gone. Allowing herself a quiet chuckle, Chancellor Bathory was soon to follow.
Queen Kaizoku and her cohort crept silently through one room and into another, Augury in the lead.
"Well, seer?" General Grim inquired, "In what direction lay the items we seek?"
"In all directions…" Came Augury's distant voice, quiet as the wind on a moonless night, "A moment…"
The other two nearly carried on a pace before stopping in order to not leave their third behind. Madame Augury clutched her head, swaying slightly. Beyond the sight of the camera, Elytra brought up the map of the museum that laid out where all the artifacts from the Avvisi bounties could be found. Pryseia and Nevara did the same, though they both stepped back as if struck, a narrative beat they'd discussed before departing.
"How…" Queen Kaizoku hissed, "You've projected this information into my mind. Are you-?"
"No." Augury snapped, sounding truly present for the first time, "The zymeth are nothing in comparison to me."
A fiction that was sure to get speculation going as to just what race, exactly, Augury hailed from. The chances of there being new civilizations out there in the galaxy were statistically high, after all, to say nothing of psionic aberrations popping up in one of the known species. A little something to drive engagement.
"We've our targets, it matters not how we acquired them." General Grim announced sternly.
Queen Kaizoku turned to her, the faceless visage of her helm somehow able to convey the menacing glare this breach in decorum warranted.
"Then let us set about retrieving them." She replied after a tense moment. She turned to Augury a moment later, demanding, "Prepare the transport."
Nodding wordlessly, Madame Augury peeled off into a secluded little alcove. During the day, it was a quiet rest spot tourists could stop at, a bench placed perfectly within to have an unimpeded view of the aisles of display cases that made up this wing of the museum. She unslung the case she carried from her shoulder, placing it on the ground and tapping a series of buttons that ran along its side before stepping back. As soon as she was clear of it, the case unfolded itself into a thin platform, a bar to steer it popping up even as the platform itself began to hover a few hand spans off the floor.
While she was taking care of that, Grim and Kaizoku split up, making their way through the displays, Augury following her own path soon after.
Pryseia was the first to reach one of their bounty artifacts, an earthenware vase that was part of a set from an ancient Usgaisjan culture, once on display at one of their colonies, but "discovered and preserved for posterity" by a Zymeth expeditionary force. The Usgaisjan Union had been lobbying for the return of this stolen item for centuries, but as was the way of the Enlightened, they ignored those they thought were lesser than them. Placing her left hand against the plinth the vase was seated on, Pryseia activated the security breaking systems Malakh had installed directly into her prosthetic arm.
Monitoring things with her Longan, it didn't take long for the security measures protecting the vase to be undone one by one, until all that stood between Pryseia and the relic was the clear case of the display itself. Without the other security measures in place, the box was just a box, held in place by gravity and the groves in the plinth it was set into. Whatever was on display at the time needed to be accessible by the museum staff, so it took no effort at all to lift the clear case off and retrieve the vase from within. Pryseia replaced the display and then headed back to the alcove to where the platform Elytra had prepared lay in wait, vase in hand.
Once she was near enough, she pulled a small container from within her coat, and aimed it at a corner of the platform. A small glob of some type of foam launched out of the container with a quiet hiss, landing with a splat. Pryseia was quick to press the vase onto this foam, as it expanded rapidly, quickly covering the entire artifact and securing it to the platform. Nevara was at her side a moment later, the ornate wooden box from an ancient Human civilization she was carrying receiving the same treatment.
Elytra was quick to follow, the ancient Deorviran hand mirror attached to the platform with protective foam in seconds.
"Three down, twenty to go," she whispered to the other two, "Hope the others are having as much luck."
Pryseia allowed herself a quiet laugh, saying, "Have faith, my friend. We will know when they reach their goal."
Due to the nature of the size of the mechs on display, the wing that housed them was a good distance away from the rest of the artifact exhibits. Their own maps filling their Longan's HUDs, Rhea and Malakh made their way through galleries of paintings, kitschy restaurants and gift shops shut down for the night, and seating galore for tourists to stop and stare at stolen artifacts.
"Your loyalty to your Queen is commendable," Chancellor Bathory said after some time, "I wonder, what could have ensured such unswerving faithfulness?"
"You've not yet earned the right to ask such things of me." The Queen's Red Left Hand snapped, killing the conversation before it could even begin. She clearly wanted nothing to do with her unwanted companion.
Malakh, however, was having to restrain herself from reaching back with her tail and looping it around whatever part of Rhea she was closest to.
This whole subterfuge thing, slipping meaning underneath whatever nonsense they needed to say in character, it was all so strikingly similar to the lengths they'd needed to go to in order to keep their blossoming romance under wraps while strapped to Thalatte bombs. The key difference here was that this was all a charade they could drop whenever they wanted to, and the urge to drop it was one Malakh was finding herself struggling against.
They had a job to do here, after all, and restraint would make the reward later all the sweeter.
RHEA: I can feel what you're thinking from back here, my love.
But giving in here would be so very rewarding.
MALAKH: Darling, I'd be more than happy to show you exactly what I have in mind, but it's going to have to wait until we're back on the Pelekys.
RHEA: As if I wasn't motivated before.
The pair of them stopped before the door of a service corridor, Bathory scanning the room behind them while the Hand took care of the lock. It only took seconds before the two of them were slipping through the opened door.
"Tell me, what do you know of these machines?" The Chancellor asked, pulling from a script they'd hashed out to pepper in some lore about their situation.
"Is your prophet not forthcoming with the details of her own?" The Hand shot back.
Bathory scoffed. "She speaks of the future, not the past. From the information the General gathered, the Baithaiz, like so many others, sought out Hyttan mechs to bolster their own forces. Instead of the obedient Odazaen, they found that great brute. It would respond to none of their commands, and so they created a tournament to find a worthy pilot. They combed the galaxy, eventually plucked Augury from whatever world she hails from, and lo and behold, the machine bent itself to her will. She's told me little else, but it matters not. That kind of power… it's not something I could resist."
"And so you hope to use that power for your own ends?" The Hand demanded.
"Of course, don't you?" Was the Chancellor's reply.
The Hand let out a dark chuckle, fully intent on replying, but an unexpected hiccup interrupted their plans. Down the hall from them, a door in the service corridor opened, light spilling out before them. Moving as one, Malakh and Rhea dove into the closest hiding spot they could find, an alcove where some janitorial supplies had been tucked away.
A command from their Longan had their hovering cameras darting out of sight, and in the tight confines of the alcove, Rhea tugged her cape up so it covered the both of them. With a thought, her Unit activated the optical camouflage embedded within the cape, giving the illusion that it was nothing more than an empty stretch of wall.
Chest to chest, the arm not holding up her cape around Malakh's waist, the other woman's hands on her neck and shoulder, pulling her close, it was all Rhea could do to keep her breathing under control as she remembered another situation like this, so very long ago.